I first painted the paper black with sumi ink.  Then I gilded the clothing area in silver leaf.  My plan was to paint black on the silver leaf in order to define her clothing and to build white acrylic in layers to define her skin.  After completing my plan, I dug back into the darker areas of her skin with black acrylic and then repainted with the white.  It improved!

Now I’m very much looking forward to my next Peregrine project which is ready to begin now.  It’ll be an 18 x 8 inch accordion-fold book of 16 pen and ink drawings of Peregrine in this same black and silver sequined bunny-dress.  The plan looks spectacular.  Maybe an edition of three of these?

Peregrine, painting in acrylic and sumi ink on silver-gilded paper, 90 x 38.5 inches, completed April 17, 2010 (collection: Bishop-McCann, an award-winning brand experiences agency)

detail

Closer detail showing paint application white over black over white over sumi in face and black over silver gilding in clothing

Mark Sfirri and I were roommates while we were teaching at Anderson Ranch Arts Center 18 month or so ago, and I dropped into his workshop to see what he was teaching — turned out to be ‘eccentric spindle turning’ in the lathe shop… COOL STUFF! Been meaning to give that a try, so I cut some whimsical table legs from a large cedar beam I’ve had sitting in the shop a few years and… Here are the turnings for the legs:

I’d intended to make a 40″ circular table top, but it didn’t seem to coordinate with the fancy legs, so I made a somewhat bulging square top, gessoed it, and mounted it to my lathe for painting… Painted with acrylics again, and then used marker to make some dark circle accents, then heavily spray-lacquered the marker, causing it to dissolve and run like crazy — I LOVE this effect!

Break is Over and I’m back working on the big press!  Here are a couple of photos of Leggie’s completed ‘fruit monster’ table — four legs, fruity feet, and one big eye staring up out of the top… Kinda whimsical, I guess — and fun — I think she’ll like it. But I’m gonna have to make her a set of chairs to go around it now, too…